Padel scoring: 15-30-40 and the golden point

How does padel scoring work?

Within a game, the points are counted 15, 30, 40, game:

• No points yet: "love"
• First point: 15
• Second: 30
• Third: 40
• Win the ball at 40 (and your opponent has less), and you win the game.

A set is won by whoever reaches six games first with at least a two-game lead. At 5–5 you keep going and the set is won 7–5. If it's 6–6, a tiebreak is played. A match is best of three sets. The third set can be played without a tiebreak, won by two clear games, if that is agreed in advance.

One difference from tennis catches every newcomer: the serve is hit at or below waist height, so in practice underarm. You bounce the ball behind the service line and hit it with at least one foot on the ground. You still get two serves.

What are the three official scoring options?

Most explanations of padel scoring skip this, and it is the thing an organizer actually needs. The FIP rulebook does not define one single way to score a game. It lists three options, and a tournament picks one before the first serve:

• Option 1, advantage: the traditional method.
• Option 2, star point: new for 2026.
• Option 3, golden point: one decisive ball at 40–40.

So the honest answer to "how is a padel game scored" is: it depends which of the three the organizer chose. That is exactly why it belongs in the invite rather than in a discussion on court.

The last column is our own count, not a number from the rulebook: six points get you to 40-40, golden point adds one more, and star point at most five.

Deuce: golden point vs. traditional advantage

At 40–40 (deuce), padel scoring has two classic ways to decide the game:

• Golden point (punto de oro): one decisive ball. The winner of that single ball takes the game, no advantage. World Padel Tour played golden point from 2020 to 2023, and in our experience it is still what most club nights play, because it keeps the pace up and puts real pressure on the serve.
• Traditional advantage: as in tennis, you have to win two balls in a row from deuce, first "advantage", then the game. Lose the advantage and it's back to deuce. Premier Padel played advantage from its start in 2022 through 2025. In theory a game can last a long time, which is the whole problem when the court is booked for 90 minutes.

Star point: the new 2026 rule

For 2026, FIP (the international padel federation) introduced a middle ground called star point. It keeps some of the tension of advantage, but sets a hard limit. The rulebook counts the deuces out loud:

1. Deuce 1: the next ball won is called "advantage 1". Win the ball after it and you take the game. Lose it and you are back to deuce 2.
2. Deuce 2: the next ball won is "advantage 2". Same again. Lose it and you go to deuce 3.
3. Deuce 3: one decisive ball, the star point. Whoever wins it wins the game.

In other words: up to two advantages, and if no one closes it out, a single ball decides. It gives more drama than golden point without a game lasting forever. A game now has a known maximum length, which is what makes a schedule hold.

FIP's general assembly approved star point unanimously on 28 November 2025. From 2026 it is used in Premier Padel, the CUPRA FIP Tour, FIP Promises and the amateur FIP Beyond tour. It was first played at FIP Bronze Melbourne in January 2026, and made its Premier Padel debut at the Riyadh P1 in February. The rulebook keeps all three as options, so you will meet all of them at clubs for a while yet. If keeping count of deuce 1, 2 and 3 sounds like a job, the match scoreboard does it for you.

Who chooses the side on a decisive ball?

This part of padel scoring catches out club players every week, and it works the same for golden point and star point:

• The receiving pair chooses whether to take the serve on the right or the left side.
• They cannot change positions to do it. You choose a side, not a swap. Whoever is already standing there takes the ball.
• In mixed matches, the receiver on the deciding point must be the same sex as the server. Man serves, man receives.

Read that last one out before a mixed night starts. It quietly decides who gets the biggest ball of the game, and it is the rule people argue about most.

How does scoring in a padel tiebreak work?

• Tiebreak (at 6–6 in a set): first to 7 points with a two-point lead. Here you count 1, 2, 3 … instead of 15-30-40. A set won on a tiebreak is written 7–6.
• Super-tiebreak: first to 10 points (two-point lead). Often used instead of a full third set in club and amateur tournaments to save time.

The serving order in a tiebreak trips up almost everyone. In order:

1. Whoever was next to serve serves one point, from the right.
2. The other pair then serves two, starting from the left.
3. After that everyone serves two points at a time, keeping the order from the set.
4. You change ends every 6 points.
5. The next set is started by the pair that did not serve first in the tiebreak.

When do you change ends?

In a normal set you change ends after the 1st, 3rd and every subsequent odd game, so after games 1, 3, 5 and so on. Put another way: whenever the games played in the set add up to an odd number. In a tiebreak it is every 6 points. If you forget, correct it as soon as someone notices: every point played before the mistake still counts.

Short formats: the pro set and the mini set

For club tournaments with limited court time, the pro set is popular: one long set to eight games (with a tiebreak at 8–8) instead of best of three. Fast, but still real padel scoring with games and a tiebreak. It is a club convention rather than a rule: the FIP rulebook doesn't mention it.

What the FIP rules do allow as shorter scoring: a mini set to four games (tiebreak at 4–4), a match tiebreak to 7 in place of a deciding third set, and the super-tiebreak to 10. These are all legal ways to score a real match, so you never have to invent your own format.

Which padel scoring should you use?

• Social night: skip games and sets. Play Americano to a fixed number of points (see the format guide).
• Tournament, little time: a pro set or super-tiebreak with golden point.
• Tournament, done properly: best of three sets with golden point or star point.

Whatever you land on, write it in the invite. "Best of three, star point" is four words and settles every deuce argument before it starts.

What if two players finish on the same score?

Point difference separates them first, in both of PadelLoop's tables, and the rest of the order depends on the format. A scoring guide has to answer the last question of the night, who actually won, so decide the tiebreaker before you start, not while people are standing around waiting for a prize.

In PadelLoop it is already decided, and the two tables do it differently because they measure different things.

• In Americano and Mexicano, where you play for points rather than games, the table sorts on points, then point difference, then number of wins, then name alphabetically.
• In the round robin with fixed pairs, a win is worth 2 points and there are no draws. PadelLoop only accepts a score that could have finished the match in the format you picked, so an equal score is flagged as "not a finished result" and the match stays out of the table until you enter a winner. Teams level on points are separated by difference, then total scored, then name.

Both rules are worth copying even if you run the night on paper. They are unambiguous and never need a judgment call from the organizer.

How PadelLoop fits in

The tournament runner does not umpire your match. It does not count 15-30-40 or follow the star point ball by ball. You keep score on court the usual way and enter the finished result as one number per team. If you want a screen that counts every ball, that is the separate match scoreboard, which handles padel scoring with golden point, star point or advantage and has an undo for every tap.

What the runner does run is a round robin or a Monrad with fixed pairs. When you set it up you pick a match format from a list: best of three with golden point, star point (FIP 2026) or traditional advantage, best of three with a super tie-break in the third set, one set, a pro set to 8 games, or super tie-break only. The name you picked is shown above the courts while you play, so nobody has to remember what was agreed, and the rule for that format is spelled out over the score boxes: what to enter, and what counts as a finished result. Type a pair of numbers that could not have finished the match and the boxes turn red and the result stays out of the table until you fix it. PadelLoop keeps the live table from there.

For the full rulebook beyond scoring (the serve, the walls, faults), see the padel rules. For the social formats, see Americano, Mexicano and Mixicano. For the practical side of the night, courts, seeding and the schedule, see how to run a padel tournament.